Event information
The creativity of the artist’s hands and the marks and traces they leave is part of the narrative of the Fitzwilliam’s The Human Touch exhibition. Edmund de Waal has also been exploring the role of touch and the iconography of the hand in Henry Moore’s art in This Living Hand, an exhibition now showing at the Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green in Hertfordshire. Among other reflections and insights, de Waal takes onto a different level – both personal and imaginative – the exhibition Henry Moore Wunderkammer: Origin of Forms curated by Richard Calvocoressi at Gagosian Gallery, London, in 2015, when he was director of the Foundation. The catalogue of that show includes a conversation between Calvocoressi and de Waal recorded in Moore’s maquette studio, and an essay by the former entitled ‘The Possibility of Touch’.
To complement The Human Touch, the Fitzwilliam has installed a small group of Georg Baselitz's recent paintings and drawings of hands in its 20th century gallery.
This online event and our guests will be introduced by Elenor Ling, co-curator of The Human Touch and Jane Munro, Keeper of Paintings Drawings and Prints and Catalogue Contributor of The Human Touch.
About Edmund de Waal:
Edmund de Waal is an artist who writes. Much of his work is about the contingency of memory: bringing particular histories of loss and exile into renewed life. Both his artistic and written practice have broken new ground through their critical engagement with the history and potential of ceramics, as well as with architecture, music, dance and poetry. De Waal continually investigates themes of diaspora, memorial, materiality and the colour white with his interventions and artworks made for diverse spaces and museums worldwide.
This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal presents Henry Moore, open 19 May - 31 October 2021 at the Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green. A new exhibition, curated by de Waal, exploring the role of touch and the iconography of the hand in Moore's art. De Waal is also renowned for his bestselling family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), and The White Road (2015). His new book, Letters to Camondo, a series of haunting letters written during lockdown was published by Chatto & Windus in April 2021.
About Richard Calvocoressi:
Richard Calvocoressi is an art historian and curator and is currently a director at Gagosian Gallery. As well as writing on Moore, he has published extensively on modern German and Austrian art. His monograph on Georg Baselitz was published by Thames and Hudson last month.
